There are not many roads in Kodiak, and most of the island can only be reached by boat of seaplane. Today we found a way to combine our search for monkey flowers with sightings of Kodiak bears. In the morning we flew to Frazier lake in a small seaplane. The views were unbelievable, and along the way we saw humpback whales. We flew to the south of Kodiak, and there, in a river full of salmon we prepared to catch some brown bears feeding. Our first encounter with a bear, though, was on the trail, as a bear decided to use the same path as us. We quickly stepped off the path so the bear could go continue, but the bear was not keen in getting too close to strangers either. This brief encounter was enough to send our heart racing!
When we got to the falls and pools where the salmon passes, three Kodiak bears were waiting for us! A sow and her two cubs were gorging on salmon. They seemed to fish salmon with such little effort, and eat wastefully only the best parts of it (brain, belly, eggs, skin). There is so much salmon in the rivers, that bears don’t bother eating them whole, and a flock of seagulls was quick to finish off the meal. We had a good couple hours watching these bears as they fed and played, laying lazily in the water or on the shore. A second group of mum and two cubs followed the first one, and the show repeated itself. The new cubs were younger, and the tiniest of them was a charismatic little rascal with a penchant for fishing. And he did not want to share the tasty salmon not even with his mom, and an endearing but decisive growl made mom and brother desist in their attempts to steal his fish.
After viewing the bears, we ran down the path to a Mimulus population and collected some material and photos. This is a very special population, and somehow I managed to convince Jannice to call it “OSO”.
In the afternoon, we joined Josh and set off to explore the southernmost place in kodiak that you can reach by car. We arrived to Fossil Beach late afternoon, and were amazed by the thousands of mollusk fossils embedded in a lost very rock! And lo and behold, we found monkey flowers here too! We first saw them in some inaccessible cliffs, but a lucky scramble in a more gentle gully brought us first a few monkey flowers, and then more near a small lake or river. We were delighted to find more plants at this slightly more southern location. The perfect day ended when, as we drove back, near Pasagshack, we found one of the largest populations of Mimulus I have ever seen! Thousands of plants (more than 10,000 according to the expert eye of Josh and Jannice) covered the floor at the base of a cliff. The extremely diminutive plants had managed an undeniable success producing even more seeds.
What a wonderful 48 hours we have passed in Kodiak. In barely over two days we have accomplished one of the key goals of our expedition: Sample monkey flowers in the island that Langsdorff visited 210 years ago. Little by little, I feel we are closing into finding an answer to the mystery of where do Scottish monkey flowers come from.
Tomorrow we embark on a big adventure. In the afternoon, we will board the Trusty Tusty (an old and well-known Alaskan ferry), to travel for nearly three days along the Alaska peninsula and towards the Aleutian Islands.
